Anomaly
by Demitra Florentini
Summary: A bone-chilling X Files style thriller about a bad to the bone drug dealing teen, her hopeless best friend, and some other people not planning on getting involved. This story of government conspiracy story begs the question: What is human?
1. Prologue Part 1: Eve's POV

_Anomaly_

By: Miranda Callahan

Prologue Part 1: Eve Plainsong, Lilith Octangle, and Damien Wellborn

Eve's P.O.V.

"_I want to believe."_

Fox Mulder, X Files, 1993

"Remind me one more time why we are doing this", Lilith said as she took one final gaze up into the hazy night over the Big Apple through the big glass window in the airport. I sighed,"Because of all the lives I've ruined, and the others I have touched in the process. Besides, my family hates me." Lilith just rolled her eyes. We've had this conversation far too many times to count over the past few months. And yet, here we stand, waiting to board our flight to Raleigh, and she protests.

"Really, Eve. You are not bad luck", She tried to comfort me, but we both knew she was far from right. Just then, the chain supporting the light dangling over her head snapped. I jolted out my hand and caught it before she could slice her head on the sharp steel edge. I placed the broken light for maintenance to find under her seat, smiling at the irony of the situation.

"Honestly, how did you ever expect to survive without me watching your every move? Hardly a day goes by where I don't save you from getting hit by a bus or spraining your ankle! This move is going to work wonders on you. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be independent and maybe you'll have found some common sense. After all, it's a great place to start. Only _you _could get in trouble in a town this small. It's not even possible with my luck plaguing you".

"No, Eve," Lilith shook her head,"I would rather have an exciting life running away from fate as your friend then as a stuck up New Yorker". I just laughed,"I'm dangerous, Lilith. Why can't you see that?" I stopped, taking that thought back,"I'm _glad _you can't see that. Because I'm selfish. I'm to self-centered to know what's best for you and leave. It's too late now. You have a better chance of staying alive, thriving in my house then you do on your own." I said as we took our seats on the plane. First class, of course.

My family is what most would call filthy rich. My dad is the stock market king. We live -well, I _lived_- in a designer apartment in downtown Soho. Sheryl, my mother, and James, my father, along with my four sisters hate me. Why I don't know. It has something to do with my birth. I wasn't my father's child, very obvious because I take after my biological father and look nothing like any of my family. This was it as far as I know of.

The roar of the plane engines ceased as we dropped into the Raleigh airport. I opened my eyes, for I was pretending to be asleep. Which was very good because no matter where I go my beauty stands out like a sore thumb. Not to be vain or anything. I get almost every boy frothing at the mouth to talk to me.

Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear. I looked over to the seat on my right to watch Lilith flip her platinum blonde hair and bat her eyes, flirting with the boy in the row behind her. Three hours into our life and she was already rubbing it in my face that I refused get close to anyone. I grimaced and pinched the pressure points at her wrists and she squealed as I drug her off the plane to luggage claim.

It was pouring rain, but we managed to jam all of our duffle bags into the cab before they could get too wet. The time seemed to crawl by slowly as we drove south for two hours. The world just seemed to want to make it this much harder for me to realize that my life meant nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nil. And I have to say it felt pretty awful.

We pulled up into the muddy drive way and it was still raining. the storm had moved south with us, a perpetually rainy cloud looming over our heads. I stepped out of the tacky bright yellow cab and stared up into my own personal hell. The self-inflicted purgatory that was our new home in Half Moon, North Carolina.

When i opened the door I almost gagged at the amount of dust in our powder room sized foyer. I flicked the lights on, only to realize that most of the furniture was soaking wet in the rain. I guess the movers were to stupid to find the key? At least it wasn't all ruined. Most of our belongings were in boxes and were kept safe and dry. A brown leather chair had been placed under the small awning and was still fairly dry. I checked my watch. 2:00 A.M. Lilith was starting to doze, i noted so I dug out a thick sky blue quilt and sent her to sleep in the inviting seat. We had our first school day coming up soon and she needed her rest. I didn't.

I walked into the kitchen and looked around monotonously. It wasn't all that bad, I mean if you were fond of something right out of the That 70's Show. The cabinets were an orange stain and the counters were an atrocious yellow that made me want to puke. The tacky linoleum was the same eye-burning shade of sunshine. A fairly decent conditioned fridge and stove were already in place, but to my dismay there was no dishwasher. God, I get the feeling small town living isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I dug threw my poorly labeled cardboard boxes for a metal pot to boil water in. When it was ready, I realized that I really needed to pay a visit to the store. Especially when my supply of caffeinated coke zero was running low and my espresso machine needed to dry out. I had no tea either. I couldn't live without some form of caffeine so I had no choice but to pay my first visit to the store. At two in the morning. Way to make a bad impression, Eve. Also, it was around this time that it occurred to me that I had not asked the dealership to drop off Lilith's and mine cars. I pushed the white lace curtains aside and looked out the diamond paned kitchen window. At least the rain had subsided for a while.

I stormed out into the front yard and grabbed my bike. I'd go do some light shopping and pick up some coffee, tea, and breakfast for Lilith tomorrow. I had brought enough freeze dried and dry food to tied us over before a major grocery excursion. I didn't eat much, if at all. Lilith claimed to be "watching her figure," but I had to keep a close watch on her diet to make sure she didn't pig out on junk food or go anorexic on me.

I rode down the shoulder lane on the highway, pushed hard on the bike petals to keep from tumbling over on the rough road. it must not have been paved in a millennia, If ever. I hit a pot hole in the dark of the road, and my bike chain snapped in half.

"Shit!" I was already in a bad enough mood not having my precious coffee, and now this? Karma really hates me, doesn't it. I kept my cool and just threw my bike in the woods. Okay, so I lost it and killed some deer in it's sleep I winged it at it's head so hard, But hey. Who's looking? Besides, there are way to many deer in the world for it to honestly be a healthy concentration and I could always buy a new bike.

I thought about turning around and going back home, but the 24 hour mart was only a few blocks away.

I stood at the entrance to the store for a few seconds, waiting for the door to open automatically before I realized I had to pull it open. "Dorothy, You're not in Kansas anymore," I grumbled under my breath as I went to the back of the store for milk. I grabbed a gallon of 1% and a loaf of wonder bread before heading to the isle with the coffee.

I strolled past the little red boxes of Ritz crackers and picked up some Cap 'n Crunch and Cheerios to go with the milk. I turned around the corner to the isle on the far end of the store. A shiver ran down my spine, and it didn't come from the air conditioner which happened to be conveniently stationed right over my head. I walked over to the coffee, a little upset by the lack of selection. They didn't have my Illy, but at least they had my second favorite: Starbucks French roast. I was about to walk away when i got that impeding feeling that some one was watching.

I shifted my gaze to my feet to realize that there were four down there. Either i was not in the best mental state at the moment (but was I ever) or I wasn't the only freak who goes shopping for coffee at two in the morning on a Saturday in a town with a population of barely 5,000. I followed the feet up a body and saw that there was a boy standing next to me. A really gorgeous boy, and you know that's saying something coming from a rich New Yorker. He looked at me -no, _glared_- at me with bright silver eyes that complemented his wonderfully perfect features. His skin was flawless and wonderfully bronze. His hair was a deep chocolate brown and had that impossibly classy yet casual look, only thought to be achievable in shampoo commercials with high end computer modifications. Theory proven wrong.

My beauty that so many admired as they either passed me on the streets or saw me everyday, was utterly shunned before his... _perfection. _Okay, so maybe I exaggerate, because no way is anyone perfect, and I'm sure he had his share of flaws. He was probably a bastard behind that beautiful what i couldn't understand was that stare. It was a hunger that made me want to crawl out of my skin but at the same time drew me in closer. I tore my eyes away to break the trance and dashed away to the only open check out counter.

He was already there. I must be daydreaming harder than i thought. I reluctantly took my place in line behind him and kept a good foot between us in the confines of the check out counter as we waited in absolute silence for the ignoramus on the midnight shift to figure out how to operate the register. I could hear the beautiful boy breathing heavily. He was staring at me again.

I looked down and let my hair fall over my face so he couldn't see me blush. I was usually good in attention drawing situations and pulling my ways out with head held high, but him... What made this so freaking hard? I couldn't contain myself and looked up at his face, carefully memorizing the form of his face sparkling with pain and malicious aspiration. Look at me! I had only been in town a day, not even, and I was sliding down a slippery slope to breaking my own strict set of rules.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against a metal rack holding old issues of _Reader's Digest, Better Homes and Garden_, and some unidentifiable rural farmer's magazine. My pulse jumped to at least some thing over two hundred and I could feel my heart in my throat. I got light headed as my insides did some funny and painful things. I gripped my sides to keep my mental self balanced.

Lucky for me, the sorry cashier boy broke my train of thought and checked me out quickly now that he had figured out how to work the register. I had to get out of this store. i ran to the door only to realize that the skies had opened up yet again.

I drew in a deep breath. There were a lot of things I would be Saying right now if I wasn't a good Catholic. So, i punched my fist into the wall, busting right through to the dry wall. But the building wasn't the only thing damaged. i had jammed my finger in the process and held in a scream of pain as i shook my hand up and down. i speculated on how wonderfully obtuse i must look at the moment. I took off one of my hair bands off from around my wrist and bound my middle and ring fingers together for support. they'd be fine by the time school started, at least.

I leaned against the wall and decided to wait out the storm. I couldn't think straight and it was three thirty in the morning just about. There was no way I was going to walk home in this weather. I sighed and Leaned my head against the wall.

"Need a ride?' A soothing velvety voice asked. My gaze drifted down from the ceiling to meet the eyes of that boy. Really, most guys would have stopped trying after they saw me act like i did, but he didn't mind. Which is one more reason why he was really starting to creep me out at the moment. just the type of guy I like. Oh god, Why do you make me suffer this way? Well if I'm going to hell I might as well do it thoroughly.

"Sure," I stood up, putting forth my best, yet failing, effort at nonchalance. He... _smirked? _at me as he lead me to the door, holding it open like a real gentleman.

I stared out into the parking lot through the glass panes of the door to the 24 hour mart, plastic environmentally unfriendly bags in tow. It's okay. I didn't believe in global warming. I have my own problems. Although it was raining cats and dogs against the building, I was able to make out that the four cars in the parking lot happened to be a beat up black Camero, a pick up, a Toyota Corolla, and a spotless silver Acura convertible.

"Run," he commanded and we bolted out the door. The rain stung my face and i could hardly see what was in front of me as i bolted after him, all the more thankful for the offered ride. He went in the opposite direction of the truck and camero. great, the corolla i thought as i ran, for there was no way the 50 k Acura was his. But sure enough, before I could even blink, he was leaning up against the glistening silver sliver, waiting for me.

I pushed the thoughts from my racing mind as I bounded into the passenger side door he held open for me. At home in the big apple, hitching a ride with a stranger never even would have crossed my mind. I rarely took cabs even. I sat down against the warm, black leather and withdrew a deep nervous breath. The interior of the car smelled better than the most fastidious and exotic perfumes.

How he ever found the way to my house is a mystery I shan't soon solve. To me the endless blanket of wheat fields stretching out to the horizon looked exactly identical. He pulled into our driveway, pale white seas of crops like walls on either side of the car until we came upon a small clearing what must be identifiable as my sorry, dead, brown, weed-ridden front lawn. He idled in front of the run down embarrassing cottage - it really is a sight for sore eyes.

"Your name?" He finally spoke.

"Eve Plainsong"

"Damien Wellborn" He smiled. "I like you. I think you're crazy enough to keep me company."

I laughed "Some quality entertainment, isn't it here? Watching two rich city girls get slapped in the face by reality."

"That's not what I meant. I was just praying for some decency in this country fried nowhere-land."

"I take it we're on the same page then, Mr. Wellborn."

Suddenly, the car's engine fired, the radio went wild, and so did the lights in the house. The ground shook like a california episode and the car got blazing hot. The wheat stalks exploded from heat exposure. We jumped up out of the car and I raced around to the driver's side door. The last thing I saw was four people in the front yard and a brilliantly gorgeous flash of white light.


	2. Prolouge Part 2: Adele's POV

Part One: Chosen For The Right Reasons

The Day After Life As We Know It

Eve's P.O.V.

I don't think all the _Little House on the Prairie_ books on the face of the Earth would have prepared me for the rude awaking that I received on Sunday morning. Nothing that I could have said or done would have prepared me for the people, the work, the whole interpretation of absolute _nowhereness _as far as a car could drive on a tank of gas. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was just some stuck up New York brat like in the movies. But, taking a look our my shady, splintered window of our dry rotted second floor, I realized that the movies always get real life wrong.

Sighing and sliding into my alpaca fur slippers I got last Christmas, I subconsciously trudged down the eerie creaking stairs to our compact kitchen.

On the sunny side up this morning, at least my coffee machine was up to snuff. I fired it up and stared flippin' flapjacks for Lilith's enticement to wake from her notoriously deep slumbers. As the temptingly noxious fumes of fat back bacon wafted up the stairs, Lilith's cranky ghost of Sunday morning appeared at the foot of the stair.

"Look who's up, Sleeping Beauty. You must be hungry, skin and bones."

I fought cheer into my voice as I fanned the scent of the hotcakes Drenched in traditional homegrown Canadian maple syrup. No one can resist my cooking for long.

She moaned and I sent the plate down in front of her lazy bum, fixing her a heaping plate of ten layers, even though I new she'd only managed to scarf down one. It made her feel bad about never eating if I did that to her. It's all a matter of reverse psychology on one-track, rich girl, beauty queen minds so little complex as hers.

I sat there, assessing her shallow, luxurious yet somehow simple life with a smile of wonder on my face. I guess all all normal people who roll in the dough are like that. I say all normal because there are the few exceptions like myself. The ones who fall victim to family hatred, curiosity, and the undeniable

too-much-money-and-nothing-to-do-with-it problem faced by many wealthy people with lots of power. My father, apparently, was very much into scientific advancement matching up with his ideas of superheroes. Him being to old to live out his dream of becoming Bruce Wayne, he decided that it would be a sublime fantasy if his hated daughter would die trying to. After the most prestigious in mathematics and science schooling coupled with mastering every martial art from karate to tai chi, I ran away with my only friend and daughter of my father's business partner. Changed names, hacked bank accounts, and four sisters lying saying we're dead. Piece of cake.

I called up a cabbie and it was a good thing he was an hour late. Mrs. Beauty Queen of all the angels just had to get that platinum blonde mass on her head to perfectly complement her two pounds of make up and her hot pink tank top mini skirt combo. She just rolled her eyes at my classy designer black dress pants and a black sweater over a blouse. That was in now, at least. I've progressed past the '80 perm and dye job.

We arrived at the dealership at cloudy noon. The cabbie drove off, charging a ridiculously over priced tab, but I guess it is to be expected even though we aren't I New York. Got to pay for sky rocketing gas prices somehow.

I glanced at my watch sighing and decided to walk in.

A shady looking pot bellied man was standing in the foyer, polishing some show room hot rod religiously.

"You realize that it might behoove you to great your clients at the proper times accordingly," I said in a high and mighty fashion, deliberately leaning on the car he was polishing to ruin the finish.

"Well, Ms. Plainsong it may be in _your _best interests in the future to regard your superiors with more respect," He growled and finally met my gaze from his former entranced stare at his automobile in all its meaningless glory.

I daintily shut my eyes and shook my head at the forty year old fat boy. "It is to my understanding that you are in no ways superior to me, Mr. Lazaretto, and it is also my understanding that the customer is always right." He chagrined having been stood up by a capricious character, such as my self, being half his age. I laid on thickly more of the dismemberment of his psyche in my comments, for with money and physical strength many doors are opened.

"Now are you going to give me the papers or am I going to have to take my time and money else where?" He opened his mouth to kick me out of his establishment, but before he could answer, I tightened my hand's grip on the door frame of the polished car.

The seemingly indestructible steel morphed like nothing more than a stick of butter to shape the contours of my hand. The safety glass shattered and rained on the surface of the black marble show case stage and the ring of the alarm echoed up to the three story ceiling.

"Damn It!"

"Just give me the paper work and I'm gone!" I snatched the keys out of his hand and laid a stack of a hundred fifty grand worth of cash on the hood of the car, covering the payments and damages. I dragged Lilith out the door as the crook dealer nursed his lemon back to health.

"What was that back there, Eve," Lilith looked with the slightest hint of fear in her eyes at my unbloodied hands,"You smashed that car to bits."

"God sakes just take the keys," I shoved her pink keychain into her hand.

I walked up to my car first, A sleek black lamborghini.

"What do you think, Lilith? Isn't she a beauty or what?"

"I don't know, Eve. There is just something about the color black that makes the car look all the more sinister."


	3. The Day After Life As We Know It

Windows of Time

Ryan's P.O.V.

I heaved my sneakers through the choking mud as I vaulted over a collapsed chicken wire fence. My breathing quickened and formed a cloud of warmth before my frozen, wind-torn face. My cheeks and eyes burned from the hammering deluge that endlessly streamed from the tormented skies above. Why was it so gelid and damp? It was never this icy in late August, and although it was the peak of hurricane season, the weatherman hadn't even hinted towards the torrents that made my clothes grow ten pounds heavier as I ran.

Which brings me to a rather inquisitional point: Why was I sprinting as if my life depended on it all over the unrecognizable regions of God's green Earth in the first place? I did not stop to ponder it for I got that deep, gut-wrenching feeling that if I did- if I DID stop to quench the dire need for oxygen that torn apart every part of my body- I would be too late. Too late for something I needed more than oxygen, more than energy, at the moment. The something that I needed to know. Now.

I pressed on in a desensitized auto-pilot as it seemed. No thought or consciousness. Just lights and clock work. Only when I rounded a bed in the exceedingly soggy dirt road that rambled past a random cornfield did I wake up. Wake up to the horrors that I could never forget.

Standing at the end of the path was a rather fetching little girl, not much younger than myself. Immediately I recognized her sandy hair and kitten nose.

"Adele!" I bleated. My legs felt purchased to the melting Earth beneath my feet. I was paralyzed, only to be a petty bystander in my sister's execution.

My heart skipped a beat as twelve men in all black encircled her. I could not bear to watch, but was incapable of looking away or even shutting my eyes as they nonchalantly brought the knife up to her throat. A screech of terror managed to escape my lungs just before they finished her off.

I sprang up and forced my eyes to take in the light. My chest moved up and down rapidly with my anxiety-ridden breathing. Light flowed in like a stream of harmonious magic. Peace of mind consumed my psyche in a matter of minutes. It was all a dream... Nothing more... But if so, why was there that deep haunting feeling that it was so real? A little to much caffeine last night, I figured as I groggily traipsed into the kitchen.

The intoxicating aromas of coffee and fat back bacon danced in my head as I pulled out the chair next to my father. The deep voice of the news anchor raved in my head while mom clanked pots and pans. The hum of the refrigerator echoed in the back of my head. The warmth of the morning sun was beginning to raise my spirits. But there was still that looming, unshakeable feeling that something just felt so... wrong.

"Ryan," My mom called from behind the pancake griddle. "Be a dear and go wake your sister."

I tossed her a yes with my head and dragged on up the oak tone stairs.

"Adele!" I pounded on her door as hard as I could in half asleep mode.

"Yo, Adele! Get your butt down stairs! It's almost noon!" I waited. No answer. I wiped the sweat drops off my brow and swallowed a lump in my throat. _It can't be _I thought vigorously to myself _no way. It was a dream. just a dream._

"Adele, cut it out! This isn't funny!" Anxiety colored my tone as I pounded harder against the Hannah Montana decor coating her primer-white door.

"Adele-" I busted the lock open on her door. The sight of her empty bed and open window caught my gaze the second I took in her room. Clothes strewn across the floor and blood on the shades waving in the open window. The morning haze in the humid August room no longer seemed so bright as the truth began to creep up on me. Adele really was gone.

_Bang! Bang! _I jumped with a start at the sound of harsh rasping at the front door at the foot of the stair. It took every ounce of focus in my mind to bring my self into the hall and finally to the railing at the top of the stairs.

I watched, in a hushed stun, still unable to grasp reality. But it just started to slip further and further away. Mom opened the door, dad close behind her. We weren't expecting any visitors, and although the sun looked inviting, the day after a storm is no the typical day you chose to go for a mile walk to visit your nearest neighbors. The world was silent as my parents eyes telescoped out to take in the two men in all black suits standing on our porch step. Mom motioned then inside and they paced with perfect posture and almost amusement (although I could not see their eyes behind sunglasses), and I caught a glimpse of a transistor radio in their ears as they turned the corner into the kitchen.

My worries about my sister were, although somewhat heartlessly, flushed away in the moment by my excessive curiosity. I crouched down to the ground and listened hard to what they had to say. I thought I could hear my mom's heart beating through her chest as they set a stack of papers on the kitchen table.

The first man, who was sitting in a mahogany chair at the head of the table, his partner standing in statue-like motionless perfection behind him, cleared his throat to speak. I sub conscientiously swallowed my breath.

"Mr. and Mrs. Brookes we are sorry to confide that your 13 year old daughter, Adele Brookes, was found dead off Fullerton Rd. at precisely 3:46 A.M. this morning. We are terribly sorry for your loss. The cause of death is unknown, but it is presumed form the crime scene it was a murder. We will notify the family if a suspect is found and will be convicted as soon as proven guilty. Here are pictures of the victim. We will notify you with the details on the case as soon as we have them. I'm sorry but we can not aid you in any other way for the time being. Good - Bye Mr. and Mrs. Brookes. We are sorry for your loss".

If I could have seen where his eyes were looking I would have sworn he was reading from a sheet of paper. There is no other humanly possible way to achieve that sort of monotonous tone when discussing the death of a murdered 13 year old girl. But that is beside the point.

It took me until they had walked out the front door for the words to sink in. Adele was dead. It wasn't a dream. But she COULDN'T have died at 3:46. I'd seen her. Right then. And they looked just like the men I'd seen kill her...

I paced over to the table, unawake from this stunned trance.

"Ryan..." My mother began, choking back sobs.

"I know, mom. I know..." I said silently as I looked at the pictures, taking one up in my hand. It was cold like it had been in a freezer, or maybe it was just me making it feel that way.

Adele had a steel pole driven through her skull, pinning her to the tree. Draping from the pole were tethers of firecrackers. Blood stained the bark and the dirt under her feet. How could anyone have done this, no matter how hard they tried? The picture seemed almost... unreal in a way I couldn't seem to put my finger on. It was probably my determination to flee the truth.

I burst into tears and my mother and father took the invitation to join me. Why us?


	4. Windows of Time: Ryan's POV

Edyookation (Spelling?)

Eve's P.O.V.

Yea, still stunned by the spelling of that chapter title? Let me run that past you again, why don't I: Edyookation. Like People trying to sound sophisticated when talking about something as pointless school in a place like this. You have about as much a chance of convincing a country farm boy out here that school is important as you would have of convincing me it snows in July in Washington, D.C. How did this marvelous topic arise on our fine Monday morning, August 25th? Because this is our first day braving the hour car drive to our 200 person high school. (Which brings into perspective the farm boys don't do school thing. There would be a lot more people if they didn't disregard the blatant need for knowledge.....Or the population factor may also be accountable.) Once again, nothing like a movie.

The impression of intelligence I noted in the fleeting moment it took me to slam my car door shut was undeniably low. Ten guys jerked their heads and wolf-whistled when Lilith in her hot pink get up, leapt from the car, never ceasing to ramble on her balderdash of how wonderful the school year would be.

Needless to say, my first decision of the day was to _not_ remove my sunglasses until firmly requested by a teacher. My next snap choice was a bit more along the lines of higher importance. I sighed and dragged Lilith (literally, not figuratively) along to the main office for schedules and locker numbers. I compromised with myself that Lilith would not go on a date for at least a week. Why did I get this horrible sinking feeling that that was never going to happen whether I prayed or not? God, I know how a mother feels... I managed to find the way to her first class with a Marco-Polo style leading strategy, calling her name as she made trivial conversation as we walked past people. There tends to hang a good balance between us: she loves people, I hate people. She has lots of friends, I have none. People love her, people are scared of me. See? Mother nature has this brilliant knack for balancing everything out.

By the time I had found my way through the labyrinth of halls and buildings to her class, I only had three minutes to bolt to my own. On the other side of campus.

"Lilith," I scoffed under my breath.

I ran as fast as I could, hammering my feet in the still soggy ground. I got this feeling in my ankles like I had just been static shocked and everything, excluding myself seemed... slower? Yes, that was definitely it. As if you were in a slow-mo scene of some beyond unreal action film. It was like the world seemed to take forever long to say a word or move a step. I tried to count as what seemed like minutes ticked past for a nerdy looking boy with glasses to remove his foot from the mud. Snap back to a little bit closer to reality, Eve. I still needed to get to class - pronto.

I continued running as fast as I could past people who couldn't even seem to turn their heads to look at me before I had turned another corner. The hands on my diamond plated watch seemed to crawl and I wasn't even panting.

By the time I reached the class room, I _thought_ I was ten minutes late. Like it never even happened, time seemed to start up again. Well, start as anyone would assume time moved.

"Sorry I'm late," I said, trying not to look anyone of my new classmates straight in the eyes as they individually gave me the once over. I sucked in my breath. The classroom itself with all the people in it just seemed to radiate that _feel_ of absolute conformity.

"Oh you're not la-" The teacher began but was cut off by the bell. "Why you're right on time. Take a seat anywhere." I figured I must be here at the end of the period. that was like a mile dash, lost in the corridors. It would have to be a cold day in hell for superman to make it on time. I looked up the clock and lo and behold, I was right on time for first period.

But just like everything else around here, it was about to get a lot weirder.


	5. Edyoocation Spelling? Eve's POV

Edyookation (Spelling?)

Eve's P.O.V.

Yea, still stunned by the spelling of that chapter title? Let me run that past you again, why don't I: Edyookation. Like People trying to sound sophisticated when talking about something as pointless school in a place like this. You have about as much a chance of convincing a country farm boy out here that school is important as you would have of convincing me it snows in July in Washington, D.C. How did this marvelous topic arise on our fine Monday morning, August 25th? Because this is our first day braving the hour car drive to our 200 person high school. (Which brings into perspective the farm boys don't do school thing. There would be a lot more people if they didn't disregard the blatant need for knowledge.....Or the population factor may also be accountable.) Once again, nothing like a movie.

The impression of intelligence I noted in the fleeting moment it took me to slam my car door shut was undeniably low. Ten guys jerked their heads and wolf-whistled when Lilith in her hot pink get up, leapt from the car, never ceasing to ramble on her balderdash of how wonderful the school year would be.

Needless to say, my first decision of the day was to _not_ remove my sunglasses until firmly requested by a teacher. My next snap choice was a bit more along the lines of higher importance. I sighed and dragged Lilith (literally, not figuratively) along to the main office for schedules and locker numbers. I compromised with myself that Lilith would not go on a date for at least a week. Why did I get this horrible sinking feeling that that was never going to happen whether I prayed or not? God, I know how a mother feels... I managed to find the way to her first class with a Marco-Polo style leading strategy, calling her name as she made trivial conversation as we walked past people. There tends to hang a good balance between us: she loves people, I hate people. She has lots of friends, I have none. People love her, people are scared of me. See? Mother nature has this brilliant knack for balancing everything out.

By the time I had found my way through the labyrinth of halls and buildings to her class, I only had three minutes to bolt to my own. On the other side of campus.

"Lilith," I scoffed under my breath.

I ran as fast as I could, hammering my feet in the still soggy ground. I got this feeling in my ankles like I had just been static shocked and everything, excluding myself seemed... slower? Yes, that was definitely it. As if you were in a slow-mo scene of some beyond unreal action film. It was like the world seemed to take forever long to say a word or move a step. I tried to count as what seemed like minutes ticked past for a nerdy looking boy with glasses to remove his foot from the mud. Snap back to a little bit closer to reality, Eve. I still needed to get to class - pronto.

I continued running as fast as I could past people who couldn't even seem to turn their heads to look at me before I had turned another corner. The hands on my diamond plated watch seemed to crawl and I wasn't even panting.

By the time I reached the class room, I _thought_ I was ten minutes late. Like it never even happened, time seemed to start up again. Well, start as anyone would assume time moved.

"Sorry I'm late," I said, trying not to look anyone of my new classmates straight in the eyes as they individually gave me the once over. I sucked in my breath. The classroom itself with all the people in it just seemed to radiate that _feel_ of absolute conformity.

"Oh you're not la-" The teacher began but was cut off by the bell. "Why you're right on time. Take a seat anywhere." I figured I must be here at the end of the period. that was like a mile dash, lost in the corridors. It would have to be a cold day in hell for superman to make it on time. I looked up the clock and lo and behold, I was right on time for first period.

But just like everything else around here, it was about to get a lot weirder.


	6. Hallucination

Hallucination

Shafted into the last seat left. Wouldn't you just know it was coming- the story of my life. The dude I was stuck next to this semester honestly didn't look half bad. Then again, anyone sitting by themselves can't be completely normal. Something about them seemed familiar... Well I had bigger fish to fry at the moment then the strangely recognizable nobody I was planted next to for my forty-five minute English class. Like, what Lilith was doing. Or what crap they served for lunch here. What ever it was, I was glad I'd decided to bring my own lunch.

Oh who am I kidding. The only thing in the forefront of my mind at the moment was my miraculous arrival to first period.

The boy next to me was staring at me out of the corner of his eye. I heaved a sigh and moved my gaze away from subliminally counting the dots on the white cork-board style ceiling, illuminated to its fullest primer by the fluorescent lights mortared over our desk. Only a whack job notices stuff like that, totally beside the point. The boy looked just as bored as I did.

"I would say I could have bet my life I've seen you before, but I get the impression you'd take that as some sort of bad pick-up line from a wannabe country fool. Not as literally as I mean. Am I right, or am I right?" He gave a sideways smile as he spoke.

"And I would respond that I was thinking the same thing only I hope you wouldn't think I was hitting on you," I raised my eyebrows to the occasion and actually got a chuckle from my sorry truth. Maybe English at least wouldn't be so bad. And maybe pigs fly.

"Damien Wellborn," He said eyes drifting around to the front of the class, pretending to pay attention as he held out his hand for me to shake.

"Eve Plainsong," I humored him and shook his hand.

Remember I said things were going to get weirder? Well they did. And will continue to.

"Holy Moly," I said under my breath as a flood of images, memories collated in my minds eye.

"I know you. I do," I stuttered. "You drove me home from the grocery store on Saturday. My bike broke. And, and, there was that light. I can hardly remember. It seems so... foggy."

"Yea," He said slowly. "Yea, I think I remember that! And the car got all hot and the corn exploded. And there was some freak girl dancing on your lawn with a steel pole."

There was a pause. A long, awkward pause.

"What happened?" I asked in a skeptical voice.

"You're guess is as good as mine. Can't remember a doggone thing." He shook his head.

The teach had failed to notice our epic discussion in the forty-five minute period. I guess there were some plusses to a seat in the back of the class. The bell rang out in the hall and the clatter of chairs, books, and mindlessly trivial conversation rose like flood waters to the room as numb butt high schoolers streamed into the halls.

"I guess I'll see you...later then?" Damien asked, setting up for an answer. I think he was still in about the level of shock I was.

"Yea," I said. "Yea I think I'll take you up on that and walked the other way to my own next class, determined to be early before the next period started.

Trig ticked by slow as molasses in January. At the time, nothing seemed more interesting than the dust particles floating around the holes of my squishy pink pencil eraser. Mrs. Doris blabbered on and on with the ironic optimism that characterized Lilith's shallow mind as well. I hated this windbag just as much as that ignoramus sadly attempting to learn us in the last period. I hated the less than competent nobodies who sat around me. I hated this school. I hated this town. I hated the little squishy pink eraser on the end of my pencil. I bit it off and spat it at the overly smiley barbie doll sitting in front of me in a blue and yellow cheer uniform. She didn't even notice.

Let's face the cold hard facts. People, I hate the world.

_Bring! _Another waited 45 minutes gone with the wind. I strode away from that cage as paced as I could. I walked along the edge of the campus and stopped on the green between the wood and the school. Some nimrod boy obviously wanted to be my superhero and walk me to my next class. I gave him a dirty look and he spun on his heels before you could say "unfriendly much?"

I flipped off the world with a mirror practiced head toss when something in the woods caught my eye. Standing there at the edge of the wood in a bloodied outfit and brown hair like a rag of a hay stack on her head was a little girl. Young. About 13. I couldn't put my finger on it but she gave the ominous vibe of surrealism. I got a cold chill down my spine when she slowly rotated her head to the side to reveal a gaping wound in her temple. She looked back at me with the most demonic black eyes, giggling with malice, most likely at the blatant look of disbelieve on my face. She high-tailed it back into the woods, stumbling and making the most belligerent of racket as she went. Which honestly, completely ruled out my theory of ghost.

Swallowing, I ran as fast as my feet would carry me to my next class, praying I could make it to lunch without puking up a gut of coffee.


	7. Top Ten Guy Fudged Untrue Mythological S

The Top Ten Guy-Fudged Untrue Mythical Stereotypes On Girls

Lilith's P.O.V.

So, like, I couldn't find Vaughn at the end of my class and I was totally like, "Vaughn? Vaughn?" So I remembered that Eve was SO like "OMG! LILITH! Get to your classes, or, like, I will never want to be, you know, associated with you!" So, I was digging through my coach bag and I'm like, where is my lip stick? So I had to, you know, go back to that class room with the latino lady with the freaked accent, yea. And then I jogged my mind. I had a class. I was, like, going to cry, NOT like a baby, but you know. So, I totally found my paper with the numbers and class names on it, you know what that thing is called, like, you know. Whatever.

And I'm like," Um, LIke, do you know what that says? Trigger? Tracer? Tiffany's?" I asked this ugly nerd, who was like, two feet away. SO infecting my air space.

And she just rolls her eyes like a real sass and is like,"Trigonometry You bimbo."

"Thankies! Ba-Bye!" I was like and went fast, you know how, to my next class.

So I totally was all like, what the heck, cause there was only, like, one seat left. Ugh. So I took it cause, you know, I don't want to be, like, sitting on the floor, right. And Yea. So there is like, this, white trash looking paper, you know, on this desk that was, like, mine I think. So I turned it over, you know, and read it, right.

The Top Ten Guy-Fudged Untrue Mythical Stereotypes On Girls:

All girls have to look like Paris Hilton to look good.

Girls suck at math. (Who the hell cares anyway?!)

Cheerleaders are hot.

Girls love to gossip.

Girls hold grudges for years.

All blondes are dumb.

Girls talk, like, you know, like this.

3. Girls are mentally unstable.

2. Boys are smarter than girls.

All girls are madly in love with a fictional vampire.

Take the advice, Vaughn! I SO dump you!!!!!!

Mon1ca 3 Luthers

And I'm, like, woah, head rush. First of all, what the hell does that big word with the S mean? I mean, HELLO who talks like that, you know? And then, like, Vaughn. Isn't he like, you know, the guy I made out with earlier. Or was that John? I'm so, you know, like, bad with names. Then some guy In the chair next to me, you know, the hot one with that like foot ball jacket, right? So I'm, like, Whatever. The note is so, you know, that d word that means, like, something is supposed to happen, and yea. It's so whatever.


	8. Yawn, So Cliche

Yawn, SO Cliché

Eve's P.O.V.

No longer lost in my own little brain dysfunctions after yet another perpetual-droning-enough-to-brain-wash-a-patriot kind of class, I walked to lunch. And, as the cliché world of high school continued to deny me of any surprise what so ever, I decided _not_ to sit with whomever Lilith saw fitting to be her friends. I watched her sit down with some hispanic chic in a "nonconservative" shirt to put it politely and a bubbly little curly hair brunette who laughed SO much I would have committed her to a special facility for the lacking of the mind if I was in charge of her life. I'm glad I'm not. But of course, how could a conformity convention be complete without the redundant, super-popular, blonde bimbo cheerleader which almost every boy in the cafeteria frothing at the mouth when she flipped her hair and gave a fake smile.

Yes, I definitely made a good call on that one. The whole not sitting there thing. No longer in the mood for my cookies and pastrami sandwich I had packed when I decided not to eat the lunch here, (yet another good call) I pitched the paper bag and ate only an apple. I leaned up against a wall in the back of the cafeteria and softly chuckled at people carrying out there redundant daily lives. I don't know if normal people do that, but you really need to try it sometime. I had turned down sitting with pretty much anybody who actually wanted to sit with me at lunch. If you missed the memo, I don't like people. They bother me. The eat my food. They breathe my air. And why? Just so they can bother me with their shinny happy people lives.

"I can tell you're just loving this place," a voice rolled in with the swinging of the double doors.

"No comment," I almost smiled. ALMOST.

I turned around to see that the conversation starter was Damien, that boy from one of my earlier periods. The doors swung open again.

"Well, well. Look at what the cat dragged in," Damien said snidely. I was beginning to like this Damien guy. The dude whom the comment was directed at was some football quarterback (letterman jackets reveal all) named Vaughn Frabjous, whom I immediately recognized as the guy who was vulgarly kissing Lilith out side her spanish class this morning.

"You here for the party?" I asked.

"I don't think I could have a good time with people like you," he acted all high and mighty.

"Well help yourself to the refreshments in the back. All you have to do is steal it out of some little kid's hand," I suppressed laughter as Damien raised his coke can to the other side of the cafeteria.

"Losers," Vaughn scoffed.

"Ouch," we replied in unison.

We laughed as Monica flipped him the bird as he walked past Lilith's lunch table. I rolled my eyes as Lilith gave the other two at the table some seriously astonished expressions.

I tossed my coffee cup in the trash at walked outside, Damien close behind. Look! It finally stopped raining!

"Hey, do you know where physics is?" I asked as we walked down the sidewalk.

"That you're next class?" He asked, kicking his soda can into a garbage can with a big yellow smiley face graffitied on the side.

"Yea," I flinched when some girl walking past hit me. Watch where you're going, will ya?

"Me to. I'll walk you there."

I was silent after he said that. Social queen me.

"Oh yes. We must turn down absolutely the whole school in their attempts for social interaction," he laughed and pushed my arm, making me stumble slightly.

"It's no tha-" I stopped when a boy with some kind of flyer stopped, panting, right in front of me. Weirdoes...

"Have you seen this girl?" I asked as he handed me a picture.

I stared blankly at the picture on the flyer. Of the girl. Younger. Probably 13. In a jean jacket with brown hair.

"Hey, isn't this your sister?" I heard Damien ask in a sheer disbelieving tone.

"Yes," The boy replied. "Pronounced dead. And guess what my parents do? Just go on with their boring lives monotonously. As if going around like nothing happened is going to fix anything. As if pretending she never existed is really going to take her out of our lives. No. I don't believe she is dead. Little girls don't show up on the side of the road with steel poles driven through their heads that pin them to trees. Government people don't just nonchalantly come to people's houses without a body to convince families that their daughter is dead with pictures and jedi mind tricks. Then proceeding to put the cherry on the sundae by acting as if they are genuinely sorry for their loss. No."

Freak show three of the day skipped merrily away (meaning ran off maniacally laughing down the sidewalk) Who does that? I have to say, he was the first surprising thing of the day. Not his story in general, just certain parts of it. He himself and his idiosyncrasies was what I point at. But I digress.

"He's one of my good friends. Sis wasn't half bad either. Poor family," Unlike me, queen of the emotionless and non-caring (which honestly wasn't the case here) He was trying very unsuccessfully to hold back tears of a reopened wound.

"But she's not dead," I said seriously but rather unconvincingly as he showed me his copies of the pictures the boy had mentioned.

That was when my brain put points A, B, and C, together. She was the girl from my front lawn dancing crazily with the same steel pole from the picture. She was the boy's "dead" sister. She was the girl with the wounds in her head from the woods today.

"Yes, she is," said Damien, in his trade-mark "are you as sane as you look" tone.

"No, Really," I continued. "I saw her in the woods at the edge of campus this morning."

"Do tell," He said emotionlessly.

"I saw that girl. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Bloody jean jacket. The works. But she also had wounds in her head, implied by the pole through head thing." I said, only imagining what the people walking by must be thinking of our conversation. Is the new girl a cult member? Is that some sort of undiscovered hit T.V. show? I wish.

"You are telling me you saw the ghost of Adele Brookes?" He questioned. Way to boil it down to the nitty-gritty, boy.

"Not a ghost," I stated. "I ruled that out with the racket she made running through the woods and the blood on the trees."

"Show me," he smiled. Well at least I'm not the only sadist here at the moment. He must enjoy other's pain to!

The bell rang. I guess I would start my reign of class ditching early this year.

If you are wondering how this little episode is in anyway "so cliché" to me, or why I would believe a possibly schizo kid like him in the first place, then you must take into account that the same thing happened when Lilith's parents were mysteriously "shot" driving through the ghetto (which they NEVER used to do) and the government showed up at our house to try to take Lilith into a witness protection program when she was eight. Ya, call me paranoid but that seemed a little shady, even though I was an unsuspecting eight year old myself. Although, I don't think unsuspecting was a good adjective for juvenile me.


	9. No Answers For More Questions

No Answers for More Questions

We waited behind a building while everyone filed into their respectable class rooms. Unlike most high schools, unfortunately, this school was just small enough that someone might notice two kids running off into the woods. Because we wouldn't want that would we. You know, just incase we didn't happen to come back because of some undead freak. I wasn't putting it past that big guy up there.

I felt like a crime scene investigator as Damien ran his fingers down the bloodied leaves. He didn't even looked grossed out. Certainly not the most sensitive guy I could have befriended on my first day. And I diss Lilith's friends.

"Let's go find Ryan," He said, finally drawing his attention out of his dream of forensic investigation.

I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and tried not to crush any more leaves than we had to as we ran across the grass. I don't know why I was so concerned about making noise when the wind was whipping in my ears, or why I was all bent over making me even more suspicious. I guess it's just all part of the James Bond experience.

We made our way over to algebra 1 and inconspicuously peered through the windows. I had drawn the conclusion that the boy who had thrown the flyers in our faces earlier had been Ryan, judging by the fact the Damien had decided to tell him of my episode earlier.

Luckily, _someone _didn't like to play attention in class and had chosen the window seat in the back of the class. We only had to throw three pebbles at the window to get his attention and no one else noticed us acting like rabid animals trying to wave him out of class, so bonus there.

"Mam, I don't feel so well. May be excused to the infirmary?" Ryan said, looking his palest, which was at all hard for those without a tan.

"You don't look so well, do you want someone to go with you?" Well someone was certainly manipulatable. I filed that away in my brain for later use.

Ryan came out the door under the fire escape. "Okay, this better be good," he said, panting from just the short sprint out of the classroom.

Sightings of the undead? Check. Busting kids out of class? Check. Schizophrenic friends? Check. My first day of school SO tops Lilith's.

Once again choosing not to repeat the sadistic fascination with blood and gore that I must admit, even I myself felt, I'll just skip the details.

"It's your call, Ryan," Damien shrugged his shoulders. "Should we call the cops, FBI, Or should we keep the Bonnie Situation to ourselves and go on our merry way?"

"No." Oh, gosh. Spare me another ludicrous prattle, but of course Ryan went on. "Those no-good conspirators are hiding something. Better not to let them get involved and write up some schmancy cover-up story. We definitely need to keep this on the down low. As for ignoring it, we can't just let this pass."

"What you looking at?," An all to recognizable voice came from behind us. Superman Vaughn is here to save us from class ditching. I feel so grateful. I sighed deeply and tried to put on my very best "who? me? I didn't do anything" face, which I boast at being very good at.

"Eve says she saw Adele over here," Damien said. Why was he including this moron in our "private investigation"?

"There is even blood," Ryan stated way to satisfied to be talking about his dead sister. Even when you believe she is still alive. This was way over my head. Obviously I was missing something.

As if he read my mind, Damien explained from behind me. "Ryan and I were pen pals since kindergarden and best friends. I moved to Half Moon in the seventh grade. Ryan is my only friend not counting you. When high school started, Ryan and Vaughn got real close. It's an I scratch your back you scratch mine situation, but they are friends beings they spend so much time together. Ryan's the nerd, Vaughn is the life-less athlete who I have no chose but to hang out with even though I can't stand, and I'm the nobody. Problem is, I'm smarter than the nerd..."

I laughed and realized, I don't think anyone else just heard what Damien just said. I didn't actually see him talk, even though I turned around to look at him. One more freak event. I was really starting to pray that it was weird events happening and not just my mind gone haywire. Best to let sleeping dogs lie, though, I thought to myself as I directed my attention to fact that I needed to get back to class.

"Hey, I'm gonna go back to class. You all may be old timers, but I'm newbie. I'm already getting hazed enough by the teachers," I turned my back on the guys and ran to my next class.

I slumped down in my chair in the back of the classroom and reached down to dig for my papers to show I had made it to class. I had forged the one for my last class. My father was a shady CEO, my mom a wasted bimbo whose only talents were seduction and signature forging (How else do you manage to buy whatever you want?) and my biological father a arsonist and rapist from the underground drug scenes. Not to mention the things I did for my _perfect, angel sisters_ in exchange for a cover gig. Things like this just run in my veins.

But there was something safty-pinned to my ebony messenger bag. A little white shred of paper read: EVE- Stop by Ryan's house. I think he has some questions to ask you. Bring your blonde buddy, too. She has a stake in this state of affairs just as much as you do. -ADELE

I sighed. As if I hadn't had enough mysterious pay phone calls, ransom notes, shady drug deals for my father and sisters, and everything else to drive me from D.C. and New York. I contemplated eating the paper for a second, then figured I might as well keep it. I got the feeling that Ryan wasn't the one who left the note on my bag and Ryan would definitely be the one to take it the wrong way if two girls showed up at his house after school. My mind was certainly open to the off chance the note might have been from Adele Brookes, anyway.


	10. After Hous At The Brookes's Place

After Hours at the Brookes's Place

Eve's P.O.V.

Staying true to my self promise to stop at Ryan's house after school, I sped down the road, tinted black windows up so no one could hear Lilith belting it out to Barbie Girl in the passenger's seat. It had taken so long to finish up business with those morons at the school office. Small talk, insistent second tours of campus, service work forms, and sports try out forms can real take you to your wit's end. Especially when you have the exiled Texan, Bertha who looked like a carbon copy of the all too famous wicked witch of the west, and Lilith who happened to be the easiest to tolerate which tells you something is wrong right off the bat, to keep you company. I finally decided to sign myself up for soccer for anger release and Lilith for cheerleading after obnoxious pleading and waterworks on her part. I don't think I can reiterate how ecstatic I am to be out of there. Only 294 days of school left to go. And that's including breaks and weekends, so bonus there.

By the time I pulled up to what looked like the house of horrors, it was just after twilight when the darkness began to settle and the carpet of stars lit up the ceiling of the world. Nighttime really is beautiful when you're far away from civilization.

I pounded on the door, not realizing how hard I was actually hitting and threw my entire fist through the door. Lilith winced at the sound the wood made. This is the second time since I got here this had happened to me. First I smashed the handle on dealer's car, now I smash right through Ryan's door. I'm strong, but I'm certainly not Wonder Woman or some cartoon super hero.

"Or so you think."

I whipped my head around and saw Adele Brookes standing on the other side of the porch. Same ratty blood stained clothes and hay stack hair. She looked even more demonic in the pale starlight.

Ryan jerked the door open, panting and looking like he'd just seen a ghost. I wonder if that's what I looked like right about now?

I was watching where Adele had been out of the corner of my eye. I saw nothing but a tattered American Flag, waving in the cool summer breeze.

"What the Hell!" Ryan shouted at us. Oh yeah. there was a reason I had come to farm boy's house in the first place.

"Sorry about the, um, door," I said, swallowing mid sentence. "I can pay for it if you want."

"That'd be nice," He said, really not that mad at all. Quick change of heart and change of subject were obviously this boys modus operandi. "Why are you here anyway?"

I handed him the folded square of paper I had found on my bag earlier. The look on his face when he read the few words on there was pain with an under tone of happiness. It was more fuel for his case against his sister's death. He waved me into the house.

I honestly didn't like the inside of the house at all. I never was the diehard fan of French country _Better Homes and Gardens _look-alikes, but who am I to judge? The front door lead into a kitchen, no, rather a "nook". Too small for a kitchen. Copper pots hung from hooks an the deep salmon colored walls above the off-white-and-yellow backsplash behind an installed backwards sink. The 80's linoleum was pealing slightly around the edges and the plaid curtains had begun to fray at the seems.

On the other side of the archway exiting the kitchen/nook/foyer was a primer covered door that opened to a half finished being renovated stairwell. Ryan tripped a switch and turned on a single 100 watt lightbulb crudely installed over the seventh stair from the bottom.

I hopped over the railing when I was halfway down and landed on one end of a partially dismantled sectional sofa. Partially dismantled to make room for six computers and four monitors on black steel racks. Cords all over the floor of the dark, single room basement along with a pile of every issue of _Popular Science _in mint condition in a stack in the corner next to an Xbox hooked up to a large T.V. Can you guess who was sitting on the sofa, playing the Xbox? Vaughn, but of course.

"This is my room," Ryan gestured to the epitome of nerd habitat as he stuffed a wad of bubble gum in his mouth. He sauntered over to the computers and sat down to boot up the one the the vintage 70's chewbacca figurine super glued to the top of the monitor.

Lilith was on Vaughn's lap faster than you could say "gross much." I kept my morals, which were clearly violated, to myself. You have to live and learn. I can't make her decisions her entire life. Truth be known, I may make better choices than Lilith, but that doesn't mean I always do the right thing.

I sat down to dig through Lilith's bag. Living with me gives you absolutely no right to privacy what so ever, but Lilith is used to it. It's me or West Virginia trailer park. She took her pick.

A severely wrinkled schedule, all her to be covered text books, three sticks of melted bubble gum pink lip stick, and a note. That's all that was in there. Being the utterly rude and disrespecting afternoon ruiner that I've always been, of course I had the audacity to read the note.

And I wished I hadn't because apparently it was a note from Monica Luthers. The girl Ryan has a crush on. The girl who got rejected by Damien for last years homecoming. The snooty witch that flipped off Vaughn at lunch. The cheer captain that I stuck the squishy pink eraser in her hair. Lilith's new best friend. And the wonderful new revelation: Vaughn's ex-girlfriend.

Lilith knew. And she was going to date him anyway? I bit my lip and decided to keep this to myself. I balled up the note and stuffed it in my jeans pocket just as a knock came from the door at the peek of the crooked flight of stairs.


	11. Puzzle Pieces

Puzzle Pieces

Thump, Thump, Thump! Damien Jumped down the stairs in three leaps.

"Is someone having a party and forgot to invite me?" He said in a fake voice of distress. "That hurts. That hurts bad. I even brought Chinese food." He held up two white bags with bright sunshine yellow smiley faces printed on the sides.

"Well, did you bring food for us, or are you going to leave us to hunt with the wolves. Because that hurts. That hurts bad." I said, liberating myself a bowl of wonton noodles.

"Ryan's parents aren't here apparently. Eat their food." He grabbed some egg rolls and handed the bags to Vaughn, Lilith, and Ryan. He continued. "So what brings you two here on this fine evening?"

I shrugged my shoulders because, honestly, I didn't know. The fork was taped to the side of the bowl. I was starving like a neglected Ethiopian and nothing hits the stop like over board unhealthy Asian delights. I opened my mouth to take a huge bite and Lilith screamed like Jack the Ripper was holding a knife to her throat.

"Lilith, how many times have we gone over this. Just because you can't see the meat, doesn't mean it's not safe to eat," I rolled my eyes and Damien tried to suppress laughter from next to me. Ryan, Vaughn, and Lilith didn't think it was funny. They stared in wide eyed horror like a couple of six year olds snuck into an R-rated horror film. Lilith held out her portable make-up mirror in a sweaty, shaky hand.

"Your teeth," she managed to choke out. She bit her lip and hid her face in Vaughn's chest. How easily she developed trust in people...

"Holy God!" I screamed. "Those are not my teeth!" My mouth looked like it had taken a row of choppers from Discovery Shark Week and stuffed them in place of my own. I poked one with my finger, applying virtually no pressure, and sliced my index finger open.

Upon examining my bloodied finger, I had another delightful revelation. My fingernails were made of blade-sharp metal. As if I didn't have enough problems with my hands...

"Somebody tell me what the hell is going on!" I stood up but fell back on the sofa. "Woah," was all I could say. I could hear every brush up of skin to clothing, every breath everyone took. I saw every hair on Lilith's head as she looked around the room in wondrous awe as well. I could see every minute detail of the dark room. Feel every touch of dust on my skin. Taste the pheromones of everyone else in the room on my lips. It was hyper awareness. It was extra sensory.

After about five minutes when I could once again sort out the importance in the current circumstances rather than the lint on Lilith's shirt, I realized that everyone else was having their own episode.

Lilith, all you could see were her clothes, suspended in mid air. She was there. I Knew she was. I could hear her, smell her, and taste her. I just couldn't see her.

Vaughn was beyond even Lilith. I don't know how you can go beyond not being there, but he managed. Vaughn was the sofa. No, not just sitting there. Vaughn WAS a piece of furniture. How do I know? I could smell him. And that wasn't an enjoyable fact, I'll tell you right now.

Damien was obviously going through the same issues as me. Fangs to die for and some killer pinching fingernails.

_What's going on? _I thought to myself. It takes a lot to scare me, but right now I was totally considering having fallen off the deep end.

_I don't know. _And That's when I realized it. I could hear Damien's thoughts, and he could hear mine. Wonderful.

Ryan was just having a panic attack. But, oddly enough, he wasn't having an episode. Wait, wouldn't that be normal, not odd? No, because apparently my life had just taken a turn for the behind the scenes freak show that is and always has been our wonderful humanity on planet Earth.

Damien and I sat down on the sofa, in absolute stunned shock for twenty minutes watching Lilith and Vaughn until they came back to themselves in as normal a fashion as possible for us. Damien and I kept Ryan from passing out or having a juvenile stroke. We were all ready to have a cheery sit down discussion in forty-seven minutes flat.


	12. The Talk

The Talk

"Don't touch me you m-m-monsters!" Ryan was obviously in able mind when he threw weak fists at Damien and me. Did I ever mention Ryan sounds exactly like my sister, Kristine, when he screams?

"I really don't think we qualify as monsters," I sneered.

"X-Men is preferred," Damien said. I gave him a "what are you talking about" look and he shrugged his shoulders. "Mutants beats monsters."

"You know," Ryan swallowed nervously. "You all have carte blanche to leave my house. Like, now. But that's only if you want to."

"Oh no, no, no," Lilith wagged her fingers at him. "You saw this, you are a part of this whether you like it or not."

"Yea, Ryan," Vaughn said. "Besides. You're the smart one here. You tell us what's happening."

Ryan sighed. It's not like he could very well say no to shark face girl and the mutated rip-offs of the Lost Boys. He opened Google on his computer screen.

"Search entry ideas are much appreciated," he said, a hint of disbelief he was actually doing this in his voice when he turned to us all with his tight lipped expression.

"How about 'invisible people photos'?" Lilith prompted.

"Get real," Vaughn scoffed. Poor Lilith, she wasn't kidding. She thought she was helping, dumb girl. Her cheeks flushed a sunburn color and she looked down biting her lip.

"I think I remember reading an article a few weeks ago. People had reported similarly bizarre and whacked out symptoms," Ryan spoke with his hands as he explained.

"Oh Mr. I-spend-my-weekends-aimlessly-searching-Google-in-my-bed-room, may I ask where this wealth of knowledge comes from?" Damien said, waving his arms above his head like a mystic.

"It was about alien abductions," Ryan grumbled under his breath, not making eye contact.

Damien and Vaughn started laughing. Lilith was fixing her hair. We can just opt her out of this conversation for now.

"They're not all a bunch of crap," My hands broke out in a cold sweat. With my cheery new-found "connection" to Damien, I didn't want any memories to slip out in my head. I didn't know how much he could hear. Or how hard he was listening. I had my history with abductions of the normal and paranormal kind. More than I prefer to remember or share. "Besides," I scowled and Damien, having obviously heard just enough of my memories and to give in to the believers circle. For now. "It's the best lead we've got. Go ahead. Type something in."

Ryan's boney fingers flew across the ivory colored keyboard so fast I couldn't pick up what he had typed into the little white search box. He pulled up the third link from the top.

White writing on a black background colored the page. On top under the heading "AABA-Alien Abduction Believers of America" were a line of subtitles, the one reading "abduction symptoms" catching my eye immediately.

"What does that one say?" Ryan followed my finger on the screen with his little white arrow.

A list of over three hundred abduction cases flew up onto the screen. Ryan looked at me and I waved him out of the chair. He fired up the Xbox to play Mirror's Edge. I got the feeling it was because he thought anime girls were hot.

What seemed like an eternity later, I had read through 179 reports. I looked at the glowing red clock on top of the T.V. It flashed 12:00 in my face, meaning Ryan hadn't bothered to reset it after the last notorious power outage. According to the town's residents, blackouts were a fact of life here in hillbilly hell. I glanced at the little black numbers at the bottom of the computer screen. 11:37 P.M. Lilith and Vaughn were asleep on the couch. I have to say, better than another scene I could have seen looking over at them. Ryan had conked out in front of the tube and had apparently given up on the video games because little mechanical hands flew across the screen, putting together something at the stage of unidentifiable. Judging by the obnoxious attempt to justify elevator music and the monotonous voice rambling in the background, it was _How It's Made_ on the Discovery Channel.

Damien and I were the only ones left awake, and my eyes were burning from the light of the computer screen. I stifled a yawn and scrolled down the page.

"Click on that one," Damien pointed out a title that read _Mutant or Monster_.

_Submitted by: Mark Scott_

_I'm not a liar who wants attention. I'm not a schizophrenic who forgot to take his meds. I didn't ask for this to happen to me. I don't ask you to believe a word I say. It's all true, and it's your own loss if you don't think so. _

_A year ago, I was asked by my boss to stay later to work on a project with a new government contract our company had recently won. We finished later than we had expected and we were the last two to leave the building. He drove away and I stayed behind trying to get a hold of my wife. On the third time I tried to dial my home number, my cell phone heated up and smelled like melted plastic. The ringer went wild and the screen was flashing with all these different colors and pictures. The street lights all along the road blew out with a bang like someone had planted bombs inside of them. Then came the brilliant white flash._

_I don't remember anything that happened that night. All I remember is what happened two days later._

_I started to look and act different. It wasn't really slow, coming on easily and over time. It was as if all of a sudden I was normal and then I had _wings_ freaking _wings_ growing out of my back. Have you ever had that happen? I doubt it. I took my shoes off and I had talons on my feet!_

_Oh, but of course it couldn't stop there. I developed an seasonal obsession with either driving north or south constantly. I was always hyper aware. It was a nightmare. I don't even know how to describe how I felt those first days. After I got used to it, it wasn't half bad. _

_To this day, I don't have an explanation. The best answer I have is Alien Abduction._

"Well," Damien said, cracking his knuckles. "It appears we have a winner."

I picked at my fingernails out of nervous habit, turning over what I had just read in my mind.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. I cut my unsuspecting finger open on my wonderfully needle sharp nails. Damien gave a grossed out look as I licked off the blood. He grabbed a band aid out of a tin batman lunch box on the bottom shelf of one of the racks (apparently, Ryan didn't know where to buy electrical tape so he used band aids to fix broken wires. Because that was obviously not a fire hazard.) and tried to open it but the edges stuck together. He sighed and took out another and this time managed to get it on my cut.

"All better," He smiled. I yawned again and shut off the computer. We sat down on the sofa and flipped through the channels, finally settling on a _Star Wars_ marathon because it was better than _Fashion Police_ or _Yoga for the Woman's Soul_.


	13. Wake Up, People

Wake Up, People

The sound of a screaming alarm rang out of beat with the blaring Sublime tune on the radio. I yawned and peeled open my eyes. My throat had that burning feeling that you get when you wake up and you had nothing to drink before you went to bed. I was on a sectional sofa in a dark room, Lilith, Vaughn, and Ryan passed out across from me. I couldn't remember where I was or how I got there.

I turned my head and looked around to see I was laying down on Damien's shoulder. I felt myself blush and slid over to the other side of the sofa, hoping he wouldn't wake up and notice. I wasn't so lucky.

"Good morning," He smirked at me, yawned, and got up. I rolled my eyes and, not making eye contact with Damien, walked over towards Lilith. I shoved her off the couch and onto the floor.

"Get up, Aurora," I said, even though I might as well have been talking to the wall because she was still asleep.

"Ugh!" I growled. "I'm in some weirdo country bunken's house with forty minutes to get ready for school! What is wrong with me!"

"Christ," Damien yawned. "How long does it take you to get ready if your complaining about forty minutes?"

"Two hours," I stated. "I have to brush my teeth, wake up Lilith, make breakfast, do my homework, take a shower, do my hair and make up, and get Lilith out the door."

"Well," He said real matter of fact. "It appears you won't be brushing your teeth, taking a shower, or doing your hair and makeup. As for breakfast, we all live on pop tarts and snickers bars. You had no homework last night, although I must say I'm surprised that someone like you does their homework walking out the door. It should take you no time at all."

"Shut up," I threw a December 1998 issue of _Popular Science Magazine_ at his face and stomped up the stairs.

I dug through their pantry and refrigerator. From my own many experiences with mourning dead people, usually you plant your butt at home and eat Ben & Jerry's in a dark corner while you cry your eyes out for a week. I always preferred the more subtle "It was meant to be so move on and accept it approach". Apparently, so did Ryan's family. There was nothing but spices, uncooked spaghetti noodles, and baking soda to be had. Well, other than four boxes of Pop Tarts, two things of Oreos, and a few family sized bags of chips. Not even any Bisquick insta-pancake mix!

"Oh God, just kill me now. Just kill me now," I shook my head with my hands over my face, sprawled out on the kitchen floor. It was cool and felt good, but I really didn't want to look around and see what was on the floor with me.

"I told you so," Damien laughed and threw something at me. I gave him a dirty look. "Clothes." He said, like I was too incompetent to figure it out.

"What?" I sat up.

"I honestly didn't think that New York Barbie-"

"Woah, Woah, Woah!" I cut in, extremely pissed off. "If you knew who I was and what I did you'd- UGH! Just don't call me a Barbie. Ever. That's a Lilith thing."

"Take a chill pill, will ya? Like I was saying, I honestly didn't think you wanted to go to school in those clothes, and I didn't think Ryan's were going to fit you. Polos and Khakis really aren't your style either. Got to keep clothes everywhere you hang your head once in a while, right?" He grabbed the box of Pop Tarts and flicked on all the lights in the basement, including the recess lighting I had failed to notice before. "Up and at em!" He called, throwing packs of Pop Tarts at Vaughn and Ryan.

I stood up and sauntered down the hall to the bathroom I had found in the middle of the night and got dressed. Black skinny jeans that were a little less than skinny on me, a black t-shirt that said "Time is a great teacher but unfortunately kills all it's pupils", and a black baseball cap with an unidentifiable surf shop emblem on it. I contemplating telling scene boy that emo wasn't really my style either, but I was a little to angry for sarcasm. At least no one would have to see my hair today.

Lilith was sitting outside the bathroom door on the floor, and Ryan came from the upstairs dressed for school. He kept his clothes up stairs in the guest room closet, making no sense to me at all because there was a closet in their basement.

"Ryan, can Lilith borrow some clothes?" My glare gave it's own message: Say no. I dare you.

"Um, ok, uh, whatever you need," And he stuffed his mouth with Pop Tart and speed walked in the other direction.

I marched Lilith up the stairs and got her backpack and mine ready to go. We pulled up at Half Moon High for another day of school. Lilith managed to make nerdleroy's clothes look cute, the way she folded the sleeves up on the too big white button down shirt (Although I can't seem to figure out how on Earth she managed to find a shirt that was too big on her in that boy's closet), put her hair up with pencils instead of hair clips, and folded the too-long khakis so that just the toes of the clunky black men's dress shoes peeked out from underneath.


	14. Just an UpToSpeed on the Situation

Just an Up-To-Speed on the Situation

The day went by exactly as the last one had, but without the class ditching. I sat through class, watched Lilith, tried to ignore Lilith and her friends, ate lunch with Ryan, Damien, and not Vaughn, and spent the afternoon at one of the guy's or mine homes but never at Damien's. The next day was the same. And the next day. And the next. For a month and three weeks.

And just like I'd expected, life was no longer the one edge, never know what's going to happen to you adventure it had been back in New York and D.C. Hadn't I been trying to _escape _that in the first place? No, I wasn't escaping the adventure of having a guy hold a gun to your head or street racing for nothing more than the adrenaline rush. I wasn't escaping the world of criminal endeavors because I'd gone pussy. I'd done all those things because I was a system buster. I proved that all people are vile and despicable if they need to be that way to live. I proved that criminals were only criminals because of survival. It's a dog eat dog world, and even though you may be like Lady in the dog house, safe and cozy, there are people like the Tramp out there whether you believe it or not. And they will find you if they have to. I did what I did to stick it to the man.

I'd never even done them for the trinity of sex, drugs and money. I had money, and I didn't want the other two. Well, I guess you could say I had drugs, but I never did them. My sisters did.

We had a "mutual agreement". Since I was the criminal and they were the for-show rich sales genies, I bought the drugs because I already knew the people who sold them anyways and they gave me a cover story, money, and a place to hang my head. It started out simple. Just my sisters. They partied and needed a way to stay up all night and a way to keep a figure without working out. Drugs gave them both. I never got on them because I saw what it did to people. How they played with your mind. I didn't want it. I had no need for it.

Then things got more complicated. My dad found out about our little "agreement". But, instead of doing the normal dad thing that dads do, the whole "this is bad" and "just say no" thing, he wanted to get in on the game. His company was ready to do human trials on a mind-influencing drug, similar to antidepressants. The drug made you high, and it made you feel good, which is what they looked for, the people on the street. But it didn't give you the notorious crash and burn afterwards, that's what made it so undeniably irresistible. The downside, the reason the drug was invented in the first place, was the guilt trip. I'm no scientist, I'm just the drug dealer so don't ask me how they did it, but they managed to manipulate the brain by use of "medical guilt tripping" to convince people to turn themselves in for crimes. I honestly didn't think it would work, but I did what I was told.

I started dealing, and people started buying. It got popular fast, and since I was the only known supplier, things started getting dicy. Regardless, police stations began getting more confessions of criminal wrong doing on their hands than they could hardly handle. Murderers, rapists, arsonists, thieves, crooks, sharks, and anything else you can think of showed up on the door steps. But not the drug dealers. Never the drug dealers. Why? Drug dealing makes a boat load of money, and Daddy Dearest's company couldn't afford to lose the chunk-o-change they were rolling in.

So there you have it. And I left. I don't know why. I just had this sudden, undying urge to be, not righteous, but normal. I wanted to be normal. I'd concluded it was boring. But Lilith loved it. So we will stay. Besides, I'm not sure growing fangs and turning invisible counts as normal, but it's about as close as I'm ever going to get.

Regardless, I was dying for an adventure and I think I had the perfect excuse to see a good old pal of mine.

"Lilith," I yelled from the kitchen. "I have to get some car work done."


	15. Phone Calls

Phone Calls

"What, Eve?" Lilith hadn't been listening. I sighed and bared my teeth.

"Go pack a suit case," She couldn't tell that I was forcing cheer into my voice since it's more rare to hear actual cheer anyway. "You're spending the week with Tiffany!"

"Yes!" She did one of those modeled after a peppy T.V. superhero displays of joy that I'm oh-so fond of and ran up the stairs. No questions. How stupid can you get? I picked up the phone.

"Tiffany? Yea, this is Eve. Hey, listen. Do you think Lilith could spend the week over at your house? I have to go up to D.C."

I Held the phone away from my ear as she yelped in excitement. Then she mistakenly asked why I was going.

"Reasons," I said coldly, and she got the picture. She confirmed that she could stay, and that her parents wouldn't care.

"Send Lilith over ASAP," She said right before she hung up the phone. And I did. I sent her scurrying out the door, car keys and pink coach suitcase in hand.

Now you are probably laughing your head off saying "Oh, Eve. Don't you know what high school kids do when their parents aren't there?" Well, news flash, Lilith's been going it without parents for a good nine years now. But, I still get your point. I had thought that through, though, so sorry to disappoint you. That's why I still had the phone in my hand, dialing the next number in my list of three for the day.

"Damien?" I said as I heard sound come in from the other end. "It's Eve"

"Oh, Hey Eve," He said. "What's up?"

"Can you come over and help me set up some stuff?"

"What kind of stuff?" He asked skeptically. What can I say? I have quite a history of misdemeanors. Not to mention several felonies.

"Stuff," I said pointedly, fiddling with my fingers. My skin had gotten tougher, thicker and now I wouldn't cut myself on my own teeth and fingernails anymore. Or anything else for that matter. Ditto for the inside of my mouth.

There was a pause. Not a nice, awkward silence. More like one of those kind where you hold your breath while the other person simmers on the other end. Where you try to think of good excuses that no matter how wonderful they are will only sway you not the other person. That kind of silence.

"Eve..." He let out a deep breath.

"None of it's illegal! I swear!" I bit the corner of my lip.

"It's not that I worry about it being illegal. You know that."

"Then that's a...." I prompted.

"Yes."

"Good." I hung up the phone before he could change his mind.

One more phone number. Eric probably would be thrilled if I showed up unannounced at his door step, but I needed Kay's expertise in computer programing to give me a few here and there pointers with the "stuff" mentioned earlier. I dialed in the familiar old friend -a 1-703 area code- and (quote the computerized female voice) "listened to the music while my party was reached": Shut Up and Drive by Rihanna. I have to say, it was a really great song for this grease monkey's forte in car design, but if you saw him... It didn't fit. The phone picked up.

"Hello?" Eric's voice came in from the other end. "Who's this?" Phone manners really just weren't his thing.

"Eve Plainsong. Glad to talk to you again," I smiled through the phone.

"Eve?" He said, "What-" He was cut off by Leo.

"Who are you talking to?" I could hear him in the background.

"Eve," Eric called back, annoyed at him. I was stifling my laughs.

"Eve? Plainsong? You mean Brucette Wayne?" That was Leo's nickname for me: Brucette Wayne. And Eric was Fox. The whole rich criminal fighting the system _was_ Batman's motif, so I'll give him that. He hit the nail on the head.

"So, Eve," Eric was talking to me again. "What brings you to us on this fine day?"

"Turns out, normal life sucks."

"As expected."

"As expected." I smiled.

"So..." Eric prompted.

"I need some car work done."

"What kind of car work?"

"On my spiffy custom black Lamborghini. I need black tinted bullet proof windows. Illegal radar detector. Xm radio. Bullet proof doors and grill. Steering wheel reinforcements. Disabled airbags. The works." He'd be all to willing, I knew. But curious at the same time.

"If you are 'retired' I'm making air quotes with my hands but you can't see, Eve, then why on Earth do you need this? Not that I mind doing it or anything."

"I'm coming out of retirement, as you so inadequately put it, because of the... situation I've involuntarily become a part of."

"Do explain."

"Well, you know how I'm just a magnet for off the weird-o-meter chart stuff and all."

"Eve, just spill it." Eric growled.

"I'm a part of an elaborate FBI cover-up of a thirteen year old girl's unexplainable death as well as victim in an alien abduction and I'm currently in the middle of a shit load of anomalistic events that me and a bunch of X-Men from hillbilly hell witness on a daily basis," I drummed my fingers against the kick molding as I slouched on the door, waiting for Damien.

He sighed. "I believe it, cause It's just so your thing. I want some details on the whole X-men part, though."

"Well, It appears we were beam-me-up-Scottie-d by E.T. and when we came back, we were as different from night to day. I've got shark shredder choppers and some beastly knives of fingernails. Indestructible bones and bleed-free skin to go along with super-senses and super-strength for the icing on the cake. Damien's got the same lucky freak of nature drive-thru combo. Lilith's invisible woman with a little clairvoyance thrown right in to make it more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Her boyfriend, Vaughn, is a man-whore with the uncanny ability to look like anyone or anything, including rocks, dogs, and hot soccer moms who drive volvos. Ryan, brother to the dead girl, doesn't appear to be special in anyway outside of super-nerdy idiosyncrasies, if that counts. You two would hit it off great. And the last little gem, I keep seeing dead girl Adele everywhere who feels the need to chime in on my little episodes of mutant-ness."

"Not going to pretend to have understood any of that," Eric said.

"You will when I come up there. Get a room ready cause I'm spending the week up there," I said, having moved to the kitchen table, trying to come up with a school excuse to be going to Washington for a week.

"The job won't take a week," He said, confused.

"Oh, I know. Car work isn't the only reason I'm coming up there though."

"Then what is the other reason."

"We're dealing for FBI info on Adele and super-human freaks."

"Alright," Eric said. "I knew you'd find some way to fit in a blood churning criminal endeavor. I've known you too well for too long."

"I have a hair appointment to squeeze in, also. I'm getting extensions and baby doll bangs!"

"So you, so you." I could almost see him shaking his head as he talked.

"Is Kay there?" I asked. "I need some help with setting up alarms and stuff before I go. I don't want to chance Lilith wrecking the already collapsing house with a high school party."

"Oh, Eve. You've got to lighten up!" It was Kay's voice on the other line now. I heard her giggle lightly over the sound of keys on a computer keyboard. "What am I helping you to set up?"


	16. Preparations

Preparations

Damien knocked, right on cue. I opened the creaky wood door and held up a finger as I slipped a hands-free head piece in my ear.

"Kay? You still there?" I asked.

"I hear you loud and clear, Eve."

I pointed at the earpiece so Damien didn't think I was having another one of my Joan of Arc spells as he referred to them. Rightfully so, as I had visions, heard voices, and started railing off at the sky randomly during the day.

I waved him over to a pile of alarms, wires, computer chips, magnets, and tons of other electronic stuff. It was a tech-nerd playground, but after I saw the look on his face I started wondering if I should have called Ryan instead.

"We're setting up alarms on the windows, pantry, fridge, doors, and chimney. Strobe lights and sirens to go off, fake gun shots to fire, set up hoses from the faucets to shoot at the most obvious entry points. Nothing too extreme," I said nonchalantly to Damien. It was an easy job for me, and Kay would do all the programing for the computers and the like remotely. A two hour job, tops. If I had Eric here. With Damien as the substitute, it might take a little longer.

He looked even more scared.

"It's easy. I'll tell you exactly what to do," I turned away and started digging through the pile, remembering abruptly that what I was looking for was on the counter.

_You're so hard core, _Damien thought to me.

_No shit. This is what I live to do. I wonder if I can get a career in this? _I shut him out of my mind fast, so he wouldn't hear me when I thought that his crooked smile was adorable and I wanted to reach out and ruffle if crudely self-dyed black hair. Let's pretend I didn't just say any of that, shall we?

Back to the counter, I turned on another head set for Damien and hooked it to the same phone line. It's like three way calling without the extra phone charge! But, it's me. Money is never the issue. Convenience is.

"Kay, meet Damien. Damien, this is Kay," Quick over the phone introductions are cool in my world.

"Kay is short for Kaylynn. It's like Katylynn without the 'tuh'!" Kay called to Damien. You could tell we were on speaker over her computer. Damien jumped like he'd never seen a earpiece before. Then again, maybe he hadn't.

"Alright," I said clapping my hands together and proceeding to pick up some wires, magnets, a speaker, strobe light, a breaker box, and my laptop. One of many laptops, I might add. "Time to work!"

An hour later, we had put alarms with strobe lights and auto police calling, not to mention conventional ear splitting sound and water guns, up in all 9.5 windows of the house. The .5 window was this rotted boarded up thing meant to air out the attic. We put one in there for good measure, but, truth be told, it was mostly to piss off Damien with more tedious colored wires and breaker box connections, getting them to appear on the computer. It was a crack up for Kay and me to listen to Damien swear and throw stuff at the wall as he struggled with the red vs. yellow wire concept.

"Now, we move on to hose-squirting in the faces of people trying to get into the house," I laughed as Damien threw himself down on the lawn.

"Cowgone, take me away," He groaned.

"What does that mean?" Kay chortled.

"It's one of those country things, I guess," I said, joining Damien sprawled out on the lawn. "Coke?" I tossed a soda can at him.

"I am _not_ country, thank you very much. I spent the first thirteen years of my life in Northern Virginia." He said proudly.

"You mean _Northern Virginia_," Kay said, accenting the "Northern Virginia" like a CEO barbie doll wife would, the kind that live in the mic-mansions there. With her Jersey accent, she really didn't need to stress it anymore to be funny, though. I ignored the joke.

"You grew up outside of D.C?" I turned to him, with a devilish grin.

"Yea, my dad is a senator, but he divorced my mom and me and all my siblings live with her," He noticed the look on my face. "Why is this important in any way?"

"Cause we have a buyable excuse to leave," I stated in a "no duh" manner. "You'll have to, you know, have to spend the week with me, though. I mean, if you don't want to, that's okay. You don't have to come. I'd like it, anyway." I'd lowered my voice and was mumbling the words. Good thing he had his wonderful hearing cause I wasn't good at repeating my self, especially when I was getting up the guts to ask a guy out. At all. I fiddled with my fingers, my nervous quirk.

"No, no!" He answered a little too quick. "I'd love to go. And maybe we could actually stop and, um, see my dad." He said quietly. Cue the awkward silence.

"So..." Kay said. I guess we forgot she was even there. "I'll tell Eric to fix the sofa for two people, but in the mean time, could we finish the house? I have the programing commands done."

"Oh, of course," I jumped up. "We wouldn't make you do all that work for nothing, would we, Damien!"

Kay broke out in giggles and I fell to the ground and laughed so hard as Damien groaned and pretended to shoot himself in the head. It was a good day.


End file.
